Everybody running a company should have the benefit of planning.   So what do you miss if you don’t have a working planning process in an existing company? You miss the opportunity to use that planning process to steer and manage your company. You need to manage change, correcting the course, keeping the long-term objectives of your marketing in mind.

Does your company develop an annual plan to polish its strategy, focus on main priorities, and manage its cash? Every business, including coffee marketing businesses, needs to plan. As an owner or manager of a small or medium business, can you afford not to plan?  What you need to do is plan to manage your growth proactively.

You could call it a strategic coffee marketing plan, annual plan, operational plan,  the name doesn’t matter as much as the management of it. While these kinds of plans are common in larger enterprises, they are surprisingly rare in small and medium business.

The benefit of a coffee business marketing plan is that you can guide your growth. Your business will grow or not depending on a lot of different factors, including overall economic trends, location, specific  coffee marketing needs, hard work, and other elements. Businesses that plan do it to guide and influence their growth, so that they move proactively towards defined objectives rather than just reacting to business events are far more successful.

Allocate resources where they will do the most good. Work towards your strengths and away from your weaknesses. Develop the company by doing the most important things, according to your long-term objectives. Continue reading →

By: Jonathan Long

When you want to increase your company’s leads online there are several lead generation methods that you can attempt. There are several different ways to create a buzz for your company and generate leads, but it isn’t easy to predict what is going to work and what isn’t, especially since what works well for one company might not produce the same type of results for the next. Many companies become content when they discover one method that creates leads and they don’t venture off to find other avenues for generating leads. It is a good idea to spread your lead sources, as you never want to put all of your eggs in one basket.

While it can be difficult to predict what methods are going to produce quality leads and what ones are going to tank, we have put together a list of five lead generation tips that have a high probability of producing results for your company.

1. Utilize Email Marketing

Email marketing is still a very effective way to generate leads and also trigger older contacts to again turn into a hot new lead. You should be building multiple email lists for your business. It is important to attract new leads by offering something of value for free as well as building a list of actual customers and continuing to stay on their radar via email.

There are several email marketing tools that can help you build and segment your lists, as well as track the performance. Remember to make sure that your emails are formatted for mobil devices because the majority of your recipients are going to be opening and viewing your emails on their mobile devices.

2. Guest Blog on Authority Websites Continue reading →

Source: b2c.com
It happens in nearly every business field, and the lead generation industry is no exception: Well-meaning colleagues end up giving you bad advice on the best approach for your B2B lead generation and appointment setting.

These mistaken suggestions are where ideas from other people, goes wrong. Sometimes, you just need to listen to an authority within the sales and lead generation industry rather than just your colleagues who have only dipped their toes in the waters of outsourced sales and lead management.

Here are five pieces of advice you need to stop listening to regarding outsourced sales support and lead generation tips:

Bad Tip #1: You Need Experts With In-Depth Product Knowledge

Whether you’re in software sales or any other specific B2B service industry, your lead generation personnel don’t have to be experts on your specific product. Your product experts should be saved for closing the sale and for long-term customer service – not for cold calling and initial appointment setting.

Continue reading →

SOS Email Marketing: One of Our Core Competencies

Email opens and clicks don’t tell you the reasons behind email marketing performance and how you can improve it.

Just about every marketer checks their email opens, clicks, and conversions. You don’t have to look far to find them in most email marketing software. Though these numbers have value, they only tell you so much.

Opens, clicks, and conversions are high-level success indicators. They’re useful to benchmark performance from campaign to campaign. The problem is, they tend to obscure the more important question: What are the reasons behind this performance (and how can we improve)? Continue reading →